Two filmmakers try to create a film venturing on the life of Jose Rizal. Before they do that, they try to investigate on the heroism of the Philippine national hero. Of particular focus is his supposed retraction of his views against the Roman Catholic Church during the Spanish regime in the Philippines which he expressed primarily through his two novels Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. The investigation was done mainly by "interviewing" key individuals in the life of Rizal such as his mother Teodora Alonso, his siblings Paciano, Trinidad, and Narcisa, his love interest and supposed wife Josephine Bracken, and the Jesuit priest who supposedly witnessed Rizal's retraction, Fr. Balaguer. Eventually, the two filmmakers would end up "interviewing" Rizal himself to get to the bottom of the issue.
Direction
Mike de Leon's formal experimentation with documentary fiction
Writing
Self-aware script interrogating its own existence
Acting
Joel Torre's spectral, confrontational Rizal
Director
Mike de Leon
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The 'Rizal retraction' remains one of Philippine history's most contested documents—this film treats the controversy as a national identity crisis.
Mike de Leon, descendant of Rizal's own family, made this as the second in his 'Rizal trilogy'—the personal stakes make the interrogation almost autobiographical.
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